Tipping Point North South

Tipping Point North South Ltd (TPNS) was formed in 2009 and is constituted as a co-operative ‘for the benefit of society’. Its two key areas of work are the support of feature length documentary film and social action campaigning.

The Five Percent Campaign has been developed by Tipping Point North South as a stand-alone proposal by Deborah Burton and Ho-Chih Lin. TPNS co-founder Kevin McCullough is the Campaign Development Consultant. (Short biographies below)

Tipping Point North South’s key activity to date (and which it trades as) has been its Tipping Point Film Fund work, supporting a small number of films in an executive producing role and working on call to action outreach campaigns. TPNS has also co-produced events as well as developing its own campaigns- Make Apartheid History and From Pink to Prevention.

The Five Percent Campaign team

TPNS has a wealth of combined campaign experience and expertise to draw on – especially development sector issues (debt, trade, tax, climate). The Five Percent Campaign will draw on considerable knowledge of international campaigning and (global) coalition work.

Deborah Burton – Campaign Development & Project Manager

Deborah first worked for UNESCO backed African publications before programming international film and arts festivals; a production assistant for David Puttnam’s company Enigma she went on to be Director of First Film Foundation, working with new directors from the UK, Europe and USA, developing and executive producing first films for film and TV and working with leading producers and directors as mentors.

She later became head of development for Patrick Rainsford and actor Gabriel Byrne’s company, Mirabilis – USA/Ireland/UK. Her first short screenplay starred Martin Sheen, and she is a former governor of the London Film School. A change of direction took her into the NGO sector, first in the peace movement; later she worked on environment; public health; and children’s human rights. In 2004, joined Christian Aid on Trade Justice campaign as Global Campaigner, role to popularise the campaign through enlisting internationally recognised ambassadors; delivering high profile events; film and TV projects focused on trade issues.  With her trade campaign colleague Kevin McCullough, she co-founded TPNS/TPFF in 2009.

Dr. Ho Chih Lin – Deputy Project Manager & Lead Researcher

Ho-Chih left Taiwan for UK to broaden his horizon. Prior to his involvement in social-issue documentaries, he was trained as a quantum physicist. He holds a PhD from University College London and an MSc from London School of Economics and Political Science. His PhD thesis explores an alternative approach to investigate and quantify quantum entanglement, the most intriguing aspect of quantum mechanics but also the phenomenon that makes quantum computation possible. His Masters dissertation centres on a real-life application of open innovation, particularly focusing on the influence of the design and organization of the project on group dynamics and the resulting effects on the diversity and quality of ideas generated.

His focus, however, gradually moved away from natural phenomena towards social and human issues. He first got involved with film through leading on a highly successful Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for the TPFF supported We Are Many feature documentary, on which he was an Associate Producer. Building on his work with TPFF on film outreach, he is now an integral part of the growth of the wider work of TPNS – in particular campaign research and social media management.  He leads on all 5% research & related social media.

Kevin McCullough – TPNS Co-founder and The Five Percent Campaign Development Consultant

Kevin has over 20 years of campaigning experience. He started out as a community worker in Belfast working on issues of conflict resolution, inner city regeneration and youth empowerment. Moving to London in 1992 Kevin began working for international development agency Christian Aid and has been at the forefront of the organisation’s campaigns on landmines, Jubilee 2000 debt cancellation, supermarkets, trade justice and climate change.

Martin Drewry – TPNS Founding Board Member and The Five Percent Campaign Advisor

Martin has a long background in the voluntary sector, initially as an award-winning grass-roots community development worker in the UK, before moving to international development.  After a few years as national secretary of World Action, a pioneering Methodist programme enabling young people and adults to take action for social justice, he spent the next decade as head of campaigns at Christian Aid.  Here he played leading roles in Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt, the Trade Justice Movement and was one of the coordinators of Make Poverty History. Martin’s academic grounding came from the Bradford University School of Peace Studies in the mid-eighties, an experience he valued.  He became director of Health Poverty Action in April 2006 -an international NGO working with some of the poorest and most marginalized communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America  to help them change the factors that deny them their right to health.